


A New Beginning

by Asmicarus



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, mention of prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 22:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7125121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asmicarus/pseuds/Asmicarus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi is reminded of memories long past when he sees a prostitute on the street begging for money to feed her newborn son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a massive angst person so i've balanced the angst with fluff and lovely happy endings! Rated T for slight use of language and mentions of prostitution. Includes Levi, Kuchel, Eren and an OC. I own nothing! Please feel free to correct spelling, grammar etc. Enjoy! :D

The marketplace was packed. People hustled and bustled to and fro collecting supplies before the snow hit full force and it became difficult to go outside. The fountain in the town square was frozen over already and the citizens had begun to wear their furs. Levi sat on the edge of the intricate stone fountain quite happily letting the world go by as he observed. The cold nipped at his fingers and face but the pleasant numbness was a welcome distraction. Levi remembered the first time he saw snow when he was seventeen and had been dragged up from the underground to join the Survey Corps. He had experienced so much above ground, the little things that people who had lived up above for all their life took for granted. Rain, snow, wind, Levi had secretly been terrified during his first thunderstorm. He was glad he could get some time away from base to relax and reminisce a little while the Corps prepared for winter. Levi knew it was only a matter of time before the winter festival decorations went up and he turned another year older.

 

Levi dug into his jacket pocket and fished out the small change he had brought with him for this very occasion. His favourite tea shop was situated in the centre of town and he always invested in some cinnamon tea to get himself feeling a little jollier. Did it mean he was going to let his recruits off cleaning duties? No. Did it mean he was going to lighten their training? Of course not! One thing was for certain though, it did mean he would feel happier while ordering other recruits around. Levi rose from his place by the fountain and began to walk. As he made his way up the stone steps to a small bridge he pondered what to get his friends as gifts for the festival. He’d buy them gifts while he was here as well. He had crossed the bridge and headed down an alleyway towards the shop when a figure on the side of the street caught his eye.

 

He stopped still and took an inquisitive look. The young woman sat there in the dirty street must have been freezing. She wore only a white cloth nightgown that had a large tear across the chest, exposing her to passers by. Her skin was deathly pale and even from this distance Levi could see a blue tinge around her mouth and fingernails. In her weak arms she held a small bundle, to which she looked at with much affection, trying desperately to keep it warm. It must be a baby. The woman held her cupped hands to the rich men walking down the street. They wore expensive mink furs and top hats. They obviously had a few quid on them.

“Help me feed my child. Please, I’m begging.” One of the men stopped and looked down his nose at the woman.

“Whore.” He spat at her bare feet. Disgusting. Levi felt a tug at his chest. Rich pigs. He remembered a time when he was like that. No food, no water, no shelter and a life of crime. Levi paused before eyeing the shop next to where the woman was sitting. He made his decision and walked to its entrance.

 

A short while later Levi emerged from the same shop with a cheap fur blanket and one of the high protein meals he used to steal when he was younger. He paid for it this time, of course, but he wasn’t made of money. The woman was now trying to calm her child, who had begun to cry. Levi knelt next to her and looked at the baby. It was severely underweight, its cheekbones showing and eyes bulging slightly. He took the blanket and placed it on the woman’s lap. At first she scrambled to get away and protect her baby.   
“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” She looked wary but eventually took the blanket and inched over. She looked at it in her hands and her lip began to quiver. She burst into tears and held Levi’s hand to her cheek.

“Thank you, sir, oh, thank you! Thank you!” Levi sighed and squatted next to her.

“What’s your name?” he pried gently.

“Marion.” She replied, after she had wrapped herself and her baby in the large blanket.

“Why are you here on the streets? Do you not have a husband?” It was commonplace for those to have children to also be married. It was law even, unless you were…

“I’m a prostitute, sir.”

 

Levi’s chest tightened and he looked intently at his hands at their place resting between his knees.

“Is this yours then?” Levi gestured to the baby in Marion’s arms, who had stopped crying. He tried to put the friendliest look on his face to reassure her he wasn’t judging her. He wasn’t sure his friendly face was working, he didn’t have a welcoming face. He saw Marion’s face swell with pride and she smiled.

“He’s my son by one of my clients. They said I couldn’t work anymore because I kept him. I couldn’t just abandon him.” Levi almost choked, close to not trusting his own voice.

“Did you consider finding an orphanage?”

“They wouldn’t take him. Since refugees started coming from Maria with so many children whose parents died after the Colossal Titan attacked they wouldn’t make time for the son of a whore. They told me they wouldn’t raise him. They said ‘children of whores take after their parents.’” Levi could feel his blood boil in his veins, but did not give a glimpse of it on the outside. He looked down at the helpless baby and sighed.

 

_“I already told ya, Kuchel, the little weasel is bad for business, luv.” Levi had just about managed to squeeze his tiny body close by his mother’s side. His mother cradled him and stroked his matted head of dark hair as she sat up in bed._

_“But he’s so quiet and never any trouble! I promise he’ll stay out the wa-” Kuchel broke into a coughing fit before she could utter her last syllable. The scruffy man in the doorway pointed a bony finger in Levi’s direction._

_“He’d better. Who knows, someone up top might pay a lot of money for him.” A cackle sounded and Levi gripped his mother’s shirt._

_“Over my dead body.” Good, Levi thought, she’d never let them sell him._

_“In that case I won’t even have to wait too long. Your time is coming Kuchel and when it does the weasel is mine.” Kuchel scowled as the door slammed._

_“Are you going to let him take me?” Levi asked quietly._

_“My brave boy? Never.” Kuchel held out her pinkie and Levi took it with his own.  
“No matter what anyone says, Levi, you’ll always be my little soldier.”_

Levi held a pinkie out to Marion’s baby and let the tiny fingers curl around it. He didn’t know at that point those would be the last words his mother ever said to him. He woke up next to a corpse the next day.

“What they said isn’t true.” Marion nodded slowly in agreement.

“He’ll do great things one day. I’m sure of it.” Levi smiled at Marion’s positivity, she reminded him of his mother.

“I have every hope.” He replied. A thought then made itself apparent to him. A crazy thought, but a thought none the less. When Levi had been offered discharge from the Survey Corps after his first… difficult… expedition, he used the deposit money from the guy that had brought him and his two friends to the surface to buy a house. He’d expected the three of them to live in it after they’d each received their citizenship. He didn’t need that house any longer, especially without the people he brought it for to live with him. That house needed a loving family to erase the bad memories…

“Marion, I own a house in the southern district that hasn’t been used in a few years. I’d like to give it to you and your son.”  

 

Marion’s head snapped up from her son to Levi’s face.

“Don’t joke with me like that.” She said in a serious tone.

“Do I look like the kind of person who’d play jokes?” Marion took a moment to process his words before her eyes began to tear again. She tried to scramble to her feet to hug Levi but found herself too weak. She instead pulled him down and damn near broke his neck with the force she squeezed him. It could have even rivaled the time he let Hanji keep her first test titans. Marion pulled back and spoke through sobbing.

“Why are you doing this for me? Who even are you?”

“I’m Captain Levi Ackerman. Over 100 confirmed titan kills, named humanity’s strongest soldier, third in command of the entire Survey Corps… and the son of an underground whore.”

 

Marion’s eyes widened at the new knowledge as Levi helped her off the dirty floor.

“Do you have anything to take with you?”

“This is it.” Levi nodded and helped the woman onto his horse. He led the animal by foot for an hour down cobbled streets in a comfortable silence, only the clip clopping of hooves making a sound. He finally stopped outside a small cottage with the windows boarded up, obviously had no-one living in it since Levi had bought it all those years ago.

“I can send some of my lazy ass soldiers to clean it for you if you’d like.” Marion immediately shook her head furiously.

“Captain Levi, I cannot ask any more of you. You have been so kind and this will give my son the start he needs in life.” Levi nodded slowly.

“There’s a local tavern that’s always looking for employees close by. Until then I’ll ensure the local council get you and your son the support you need.”

 

As Levi rode home he replayed the day over and over again in his head. He had done the right thing today. He wasn’t going to let that kid become a thief or a whore. He was glad his investment had finally done someone some good. As he arrived back at base he wasn’t surprised to see soldiers busy at work decorating the fir tree in the grand hall.

“How was your trip, Captain?” Eren walked up from behind him.

“Not bad, Jaeger, not bad at all.” Eren could see that Levi’s posture had visibly relaxed, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Eren didn’t question Levi’s day further, he seemed content. Eren wrapped am arm around his shoulder and the other leaned into the touch.

“Want to help me decorate the mess hall?”

“Okay, but you’re doing the high decorations.”

 

Levi had received many letters from Marion since that day. They all thanked him over and over. She had gotten a job at the local tavern as a barmaid and earned a steady income, she had even found a man and they were getting married in the summer. The latest letter came for Levi when Eren knocked on the door of his office to deliver it to him. Levi expected the usual letter, but this time instead of a neatly written note there was a picture drawn in crayon and a scrawled message on the back. Levi read it quietly to himself.

“Dear Mr. Levi, I want to thank you so extremely much for our house. When I grow up I want to join the Survey Corps and be a doctor, I want to be just like you. Mummy wants you to come to her wedding in the summer as well. I really want to meet you because I don’t remember you because I was only a baby. From Isaac.” Levi smiled gently.

“What are you smiling about?” Eren spoke from his place leaning against the doorframe.

“Nothing. Can I ask you a question though?” Eren was a little taken aback by the gentle nature of the inquiry, but they had both known each other since Eren was a teenager. There was little Levi could hide from him since they’d grown close and Eren was now a fully-fledged, six foot something adult.

“Sure. Anything.”

“Come along with me to my friend’s wedding.”

 

Levi had always said ‘do not make a choice you will regret’, he was proud to live by that motto. As he and Eren stood there in the hot summer church and watched the ceremony take place Levi reflected back on that day fondly. Marion married the man of her dreams and Isaac was looking like a healthy little boy. Levi wasn’t usually so sentimental but thought to himself, even when life dealt a bad hand the hope of humanity prevailed. He may not have had the fairytale upbringing but this is why he wanted change. This is why he’ll fight.

 

    


End file.
